Sunday, August 14, 2011

Appam and Curry - The Daring Cooks Challenge August 2011

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

I am always excited when a new challenge is revealed, but I was especially excited when I saw this one. I have a connection with Sri Lanka because my father was born there and my grandparents lived there as tea-estate managers for many years. Also my sister lived in Colombo for a time in 2006 and I visited her there. I have many good memories of the food, but my absolute favorite thing was the egg hopper - also known as appam!

I made the appams, the beef curry and the carrot dish as suggested by the host. You can find all the recipes here. I also made a pol sambol from a recipe by Charmaine Solomon and a chilli sambol. This was one of the best meals I have had in a long time. The variety of flavours and textures was wonderful and everything tasted very authentic.

I saved some of the batter for next morning and made an egg hopper. I wouldn't usually go for chilli sambol at breakfast, but this was brilliant and also very satisfying.

And look - this is a picture from my trip to Sri Lanka in 2006. You can see an egg hopper with pol sambol and chilli sambol in the background, and I think probably a fish curry in the foreground. How good is it that I am able to recreate such amazing food at home? Thank you so much host Mary, this was my favourite challenge yet.

10 comments:

  1. Wasn't that an amazing challenge? So cool that you have all this connection with the Middle East and that you could create a complete traditional meal, and even compare with your meal back when you were there. How cool!
    Thanks for your lovely comment on mine, actually, the only thing I didn't like about my post were the photos, I was way too excited with all that smell around the house :)

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  2. great job! It looks wonderful.

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  3. Isn't it nice when a challenge brings you back tohappy memories? Your appam look pefect to me. I am truly impresses!

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  4. How amazing that you had such a connection to this month's challenge! And I think that the foods you prepared looked just as tasty as those in the picture from 2006!! Really excellent job.

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  5. I'm so glad you enjoyed it, and your dishes look absolutely spectacular! I have never been to Sri Lanka, but it's on my list, especially if I can eat like this every day! Thanks for participating!
    :)

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  6. Wow! I wanted to make egg hopper too, your appams and curry look delicious! Great job on this month's challenge!

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  7. I must say that I think I would die for that breakfast. I reckon it would be so satisfying first thing in the morning.

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  8. I'm impressed you were able to pull together so many dishes for your meal! I wish I'd s aved some batter for an egg hopper the next morning.

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  9. That egg hopper looks great! So good to hear the challenge inspired you to touch back on your Sri Lankan connections.

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